Is weight discrimination a problem?

These few days, I have been dealing with my inner self. Of course shame and self-loathing are the factors. I got so disturbed I don't want to talk about it, I never wanted to, but it keeps bothering me. Today this newsletter popped up in my mailbox: "Weighing In on 'Fatism' ". I went through the article and read all the comments posted and couldn't help but feel incensedly related to it. Like some of the readers, I too have similar problem. When I was younger and up to 10 years old, I was skinny. Then illness grabbed me by the throat. Medication and that severe illness caused my body not to process carbs and simply store them as fat. Since then I weighed pounds over normal weight and never get back in shape.

See what these readers had to say about it. I copied some from the comments, 'cause I don't want to write it myself. I'd rather let you MY FRIENDS - read what others like me feel. The best is this reader who thinks that others--who have no idea what it's like to be overweight or obese--shouldn't feel as if they have the right to judge anyone for what their weight is. It's easy to point fingers and say degrading things about someone's weight. But it's quite another to befriend that person and try to share with them some real knowledge about how to lose weight. Then and only then, after you've learned about who they are...and have stopped judging them for how they look--should you feel entitled to that low opinion...of someone you now KNOW.

Read on!

April 13, 2008 7:41 PM
Lauren said:
Weight Discrimination is Definitely a Huge Problem in our society. People are Shallow and Cruel, to judge a Human Being by how much they weigh is Ridiculous and should not be allowed to happen. When I was at my heaviest weight of 238 lbs after having a baby people where very cruel to me even going so far as to try to break up my family. Why because they thought they could because they were skinny and I was fat. I also felt invisible no one ever said Hi, Bye, Can I help you, anything, and they rarely made eye contact. I took control of my weight and lost 111 lbs in 10 months, I went from a Size 17 in Womens pants to a Size 7 in Juniors. Guess What those people who were so mean suddenly got nice, and all sorts of people want to talk to me now.
I call SHALLOW there is NO WAY I would ever be friends with anyone who judged or judges a person on how much they weigh. My mom raised me to believe that beauty is skin deep, that saying is the truth. I believe that you can have a weight problem and be Beautiful, I also believe you can be thin and be hideous. In the end we are all exposed for exactly what and who we are. There are bigger people out there in the process of trying to lose weight and better themselves and our society as a majority is going to treat them like they are cows while they are in that process, but the instant that their weight is all gone society as a majority is going to be accepting and try to be friends with these people. WAKE UP people the skinny people they turn into are the same people they were when they were big. I think society needs to Stop judging people on their outward appearances and really try to treat people as human being as we all are.They wouldn't like it if they were on the receiving end and mark my words what goes around comes around.

April 8, 2008 5:57 PM
beth said:
I am one of the "FEW" that actually have reasons for my weight. And yet, regardless of the facts I am told frequently that my problem is eating too much, not exercising, I am attractive and have a great personality, but I am fat. Although there may be a medical reason for the weight, people still do not care. For some reason, society has this feeling of right to tell people that they are fat and that this is the solution. I do not walk around telling skinny people that they are ugly and should eat more or those with large noses to go get a nose job. Why should they feel that their right is to walk around and tell me that their solution would "Fix" me? Just something to think about.

April 8, 2008 10:51 AM
Sarah said:
Society has made it illegal to "discriminate" against people for things which have been points of discrimination for as long as there has been human life. That is just a fact.
Thus, as we are genetically programmed to establish "pecking order" then some criteria for socially-sanctioned discrimination must take the place of the outlawed areas of previous bias against a person. Merely another fact.
The question becomes; Can we overcome our genetic predisposition to "pick-on" another human being for self-serving reasons--ie..to reassure oneself that one is better than another--based on trivialities? When can we learn to judge another based on character, achievements, established positive traits???etc..?????
The scientists and doctors have been telling us for YEARS and YEARS about the damage that stress does to our bodies. Weight gain is one of the very NATURAL responses to being unable to take "flight or fight"--also disapproved of by "society."
Here the upper eschelon of profit-motivated corporations are so entrenched in WORK COMES FIRST that we are regularly cheated out of even ONE week a year for a vacation. We are not working to live--we are living to work--which is INSANE!--so get thee to a nut-ward! for a well-deserved rest.
OR---expect that you too will one day have more girth than you would like to have. Or if you don't then the stress WILL--and I do mean absolutely positively WILL be expressed otherwise--it MUST come out somehow--its up to you.


Nuzai, you being my closest friend, tell them my abstinence practice. I'm scared of food! But not up to that anorexic level, how could I not eat at all? I'm a human being for God's sake. How could a friend say such... oufh! I can't tell who among you are my friend. I don't ask you to love me. I don't even ask you to accept me, to befriend me. I just appreciate that I had known you. Wishing that it was the person I am that made us friends, not how I look.